Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus threatened to pull the group’s partnership with NBC and CNN for 2016 GOP presidential primary debates if the networks moved ahead with plans to air films on Hillary Clinton.

“If they have not agreed to pull this programming prior to the start of the RNC’s Summer Meeting on August 14, I will seek a binding vote stating that the RNC will neither partner with these networks in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates they sponsor,” Preibus said in a statement.

In individual letters to CNN president Jeff Zucker and NBC chairman Robert Greenblatt, Priebus called the documentaries “a thinly veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election.”

Oh, my but that is certainly hilarious. Priebus even had this to say:

“This special treatment is unfair to the candidates for the Democratic nomination in 2016 who might compete against Secretary Clinton…

Well, ain’t that sweet of him to be so concerned about the Democrats’ other nominees! Funny, I don’t recall any of this concern when right-wing group Citizens United wanted to air Hillary: The Movie right before the Democratic primaries in 2008.

You remember Hillary: The Movie, right? That sparked the infamous Citizens United vs FEC case which gave us Super PACs and the avalanche of electioneering cash we’ve all come to loathe. Thank you, ex-Republican National Committeeman Jim Bopp.

Is it just me, or are Republicans now alarmed at the possibility of a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign? Why yes, they are. They’re trying so hard to get ahead of the framing on this, everything from calling her “too old” to the whole Benghazi nonsense, to threats over Hillary biopics they can’t control. I mean gosh, they didn’t have a problem with this in 2008. What changed? It’s so transparent, it’s hard not to laugh.

I’m so old, I remember back before the 2008 race when they were desperate for Hillary to be the nominee. Right-wing publishers like Regnery, HarperCollins and Thomas Nelson had a library’s worth of anti-Hillary books ready to ship out, with enticing names like Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton, or American Evita: Hillary Clinton’s Path to Power. They had an entire anti-Hillary communications plan all set up and ready to go, and then that Mooslim usurper terrorist pal Nobummer had to ruin their little party. Whah.

See, here’s how it works: the books (ghost-written, ‘natch) are really just an excuse to get “authors” on the TV talk show circuit to spout conservative talking points and perform a legitimized form of character assassination. Meanwhile, the books themselves are used as premiums for donations, subscriptions to NewsMax and the like. It’s all part of the Vast Right Wing Media Industrial Complex. One could say with a certain degree of accuracy that hating Hillary Clinton is a major conservative profit center.

There simply is nothing comparable on the left. At all.

(As an aside. I’d love to ask someone at HarperCollins what they did with all those extra copies of Dick Morris’ book, Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race. I mean, seriously you guys?)

What’s really outrageous is that Obama was just sworn into his second term a tad more than six months ago. I really, really can’t believe Mr. RNC PR BS is having hissy fits over nominees and presumptive nominees and primaries when Obama’s second term has barely begun.

If he forces the documentaries off the air, he gets to claim a scalp and show how tough he is. If he doesn’t, he has an excuse to pull some of the Republican primary debates off the air, so the general public doesn’t get to see as much of the candidates letting their freak flags fly to attract the insane wing of the party. Sounds like a win-win for RNC PR BS.

They’ll run them on Fox or some such … maybe one of those fringey stations no one watches, which will enable liberal bloggers cherry-pick the worst (cheering for the death penalty, booing gay soldiers) while nobody watches the rest. Win for us.

Do the debates really change anyone’s vote? I don’t think it is so much convincing someone to vote for you as much as it is convincing them to vote at all. Elections are more about turn out than converting people from one party or the other to change their votes.

“What’s really outrageous is that Obama was just sworn into his second term a tad more than six months ago. ”

Can we please go back to primaries in spring time, conventions in summer and the campaign doesn’t start till after Labor Day?
Chris Matthews often has a counter showing how many days till the next POTUS election and foams at the mouth over the prosecet but couldn’t bother to talk about real issues like ooo I dunno Scott County has 16″% official unemployment. Or anything else that is real and not beltway blather

No, we can’t go back to the old schedule, because there’s never really been just the official schedule. Getting an early start on the campaign to get a jump on the competition goes back at least to Andrew Jackson, who started his 1828 campaign almost immediately after losing in 1824. There’s no way of preventing anyone else from doing the same thing, and news organizations that are desperate for something to talk about are going to eagerly listen to every word of it.

We could try the English system. No long drawn out campaigns, no endless bullshit and blather from MP’s and the like. Of course they do have violent overthrows of their government from time to time. I think that the last one was in the 1600’s.

LOL. No, I was the first person to say, “Please, take Saturday delivery …. and Friday, too.” I rarely get anything useful in the mail anymore. Just catalogues and solicitations from the Democrats or local businesses.

But the same goes for the phone landline. When the phone rings there’s a 99% chance it’s a telemarketing scam or someone begging me for money and a 1% chance it’s my elderly mother-in-law.

If the USPS wasn’t being forced to fund retirement healthcare costs (something NO other agency of government or any private company that I’ve heard of is required by LAW to do) then maybe the “goin’ broke” part would not be happening.

“Maybe” blah blah … c’mon, don’t let FACTS get in the way of a good talking point! Funny, innit, how much Teanuts loathe the postal service, considering it’s the only government agency actually IN THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION.